This invention relates in general to a computerized teaching system, and in particular to a computerized interactive group communication system.
2. Description of Related Art
The present invention is applicable to both the field of education and to group decision-making. It will therefore be generally understood that the terms "teacher" and "group leader" as used herein are interchangeable, and that the terms "student" and "participant" as used herein are also interchangeable.
Existing computer-based networks that are used in a classroom in a school, or for group decision making, are one of two types: Independent Mode and Social Mode.
Independent Mode refers to a design that allows students to interact with a program at their own pace. One example of an Independent Mode network is the PLATO.TM. system provided by Control Data Corporation.
Social Mode refers to a design that allows many students to respond simultaneously to a question posed by a teacher.
A prior system which can be used either in Social Mode or in Independent Mode is the Discourse System, which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,641,685, issued Feb. 15, 1972 to J. Zawels et al., which patent is incorporated by reference herein.
In the field of group decision-making, most systems are designed so that a group of participants may respond simultaneously to the same question, in a manner similar to the Social Mode design described above. Other networks for group decision-making are designed for individuals to respond to set questionnaires, each at his/her own pace, in manner similar to the Independent Mode described above.
In the field of education, however, there is a need to be able to divide a class into two or more groups of arbitrary size and for the teacher to interact with one group in Social Mode, while at the same time the members of the other group are simultaneously proceeding in Independent Mode. One possible example of this situation would be a teacher instructing members of a first group in mathematics, while members of a second group simultaneously perform, individually and at their own pace, drill-and-practice exercises.
Similarly, in group decision-making, there is a need for a first group to interact with a group leader conducting a brain-storming session, while members of a second group are simultaneously proceeding, individually and at their own pace, with personal judgments on a series of options.
Members of a group operating in Social Mode may wish to review present or past responses. It is desirable, therefore, that present or past responses be displayed to all the members on a central monitor. One way of doing this is to display the information on the teacher's terminal on a "public display", e.g., an LCD overlay for an overhead projector or large monitor which can be viewed by all participants in the Social Mode group. However, there is the serious disadvantage in the prior art that the teacher cannot display only selected portions of information from the teacher's terminal.
To overcome this difficulty, additional processing is needed for the data on the teacher's terminal, such as selection and magnification of characters. In this regard two requirements must be met. First, the process by which responses are displayed must not be so time-consuming as to significantly slow down the response time of the system and thereby disturb those students working in other groups. Second, the teacher must be able to monitor all of the responses, while selected responses are being displayed.
Further, there is a need to supply an ongoing indication to a student as to the correctness of their response, preferably while the student is responding and not just after the response is completed. There should be no significant delay in supplying this ongoing indication, notwithstanding the presence of several groups using the system or the use of the public display. Otherwise, the normally accepted typing speed on the students' terminals may not be possible.
There is also a need to allow a teacher to ask a spontaneous question in Social Mode, and while students are responding, to allow the teacher to specify a correct response and then evaluate the students, responses, with possible feedback from the teacher to the students. This is in contrast to the conventional use of computer-assisted instruction, wherein a lesson program is preprogrammed and stored before the students begin responding.
There is also a need for the students or the teacher to be able to control independent Audio-Visual (A-V) devices attached to each student terminal.
There is a further need to integrate handicapped students into the class through their participation in Social Mode lessons.
There is a further need for homebound students, who may be too ill to personally attend classes, to participate in Social Mode lessons, even though they are absent from the classroom. There is a further need for ill students to benefit from the information from any one of a variety of A-V presentations in the classroom.
Whatever the merits of prior computerized teaching systems, they do not achieve the benefits of the present invention.